Monthly Archive

Windy, sunny days, cold nights and mornings, and occasional rains mark the beginning of spring in southern Chile. White flowered plum trees dot the landscape. Hummingbirds and bees buzz between flower treats. The campo is bustling. Long days are dedicated to turning the fields, planting, weeding, and preparing animals for new pastures. Farmers are planting earlier in hopes that plants will be hardier. Not enough rain fell this year, and farmers are worried about summer water supplies. Concerns about drought’s effects are overshadowed by the looming questions regarding ongoing small hydropower development on the many rivers and streams of the sacred Puelwillimapu territory of the Mapuche-Huilliche people.

Traveling across southwest coastal Bangladesh is not easy. With limited transport infrastructure and facilities, people might end up spending an entire day or night just to travel small distances. In the last week of May (2016), when I arrived coastal city Kuakata in Patuakhali district, literally I spent the whole night to travel ca. 150 miles from Khulna (a regional big city, which is 170 miles southwest of the capital Dhaka). It was a rainy early morning in Kuakata. However, it didn’t took much time to realize local vulnerability to climate impacts. I went to the Kuakata sea beach, and saw how local people are living with the risks of rising tides and coastal erosion. I clearly understood why for local people climate change is not an issue of scientific or political discourse; for them, it is the reality.

Oceanic and atmospheric indicators of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) continue to indicate a weak La Niña event that is likely to last through mid-winter at least and perhaps into early spring (Figs. 1-2). The borderline weak status of the event, along with some discrepancy between the forecast agencies discussed here, means a more rapid transition to ENSO-neutral conditions cannot be ruled out. As with last month, there is some hedging in the forecasts and outlooks that likely stems from ongoing uncertainty as to whether the event can maintain even weak La Niña strength through winter 2017 (December–February). Fluctuations in forecasts and models are due to the limited coordination between oceanic and atmospheric conditions described in previous outlooks, “masking…by intra-seasonal activity” (as described by the CPC on Dec 8), and the difficulty in categorizing borderline conditions into a binary choice between weak La Niña and ENSO-neutral.

Precipitation & Temperature: November precipitation totals were average to above average in Arizona’s climate divisions, and above average to much above average in New Mexico’s climate divisions (Fig. 1a). November temperatures were much above average across most of Arizona and all of New Mexico (Fig. 1b). This continued a trend of warm temperatures this fall, with parts of Arizona and New Mexico recording record warm temperatures in October and November (Fig. 2). Very little precipitation has fallen in December. This is not unexpected, as the Southwest generally receives limited precipitation between the end of the monsoon and early fall tropical storm activity and the uptick in precipitation in mid-winter into spring (when much of the cool season precipitation falls in the region). Temperatures in December have been mostly above normal in Arizona and western New Mexico, with cooler-than-normal temperatures in eastern New Mexico (Fig. 3). The upcoming polar vortex in the upper midwestern and eastern U.S., in addition to atmospheric river activity off the U.S. Pacific Coast, should shift this pattern in the latter half of December.